Vicarious
by Scorpio Jedi
Summary: Vincent has spent the majority of his life alone, giving the honor of friend to very few, and working alongside just as a many. But when a young Al Bhed woman dies in his arms one fateful night, she leaves behind a strange relic...


_The question asked in order; to save her life or take it? _

Red curtains parted from the moon's windowsill, caught by the teasing whispers of starlight's breath. Theirs was a silent lament…souls only recently departed gripping each other's hands in desperation, a last, silent whisper of spent affection. The moon seemed to weep, turning her silvered face from the blood washed clouds, hiding cold tears behind her cold veil of light, turning her aging face from the night's carnage.

The woman's body was positively convulsing with spasms of unbridled fear. Her heart knocked against the pale ivory of her ribs as though it were a crimson, frantic bird, its wings flaring wide to drum a broken rhythm of terror against her chest. Her breath came in halting rasps, shallow and brief, much like the soft, ponderous sound lace makes on a windowsill. Sobs were caught and held fast in her throat as though it was gossamer strands of spider silk.

Her feet numbly accepted the rhythmic assault of stone and briar as they sundered her flesh into blood stained ribbons. Behind her, like a neglected, listless specter, rose the pale veil of silver smoke, blooming like a pale, ethereal flower in the cupped palms of the woodland bowl. Even though she had long since fled the burning village she had once called her home, she fancied she could still hear the dry, hysterical mutterings of the flames that had engulfed the once humble village.

And yet, even as she wept for the memories that danced like flames in her mind's eye, her heart, too, burned with the intensity of twin suns. Not with the tainted agony of loss, but with the cold flames of resolve, that crooned lullabies of revenge. It was this sole thought that gave her feet the ability to spread ghostly, pale wings, however invisible they were to the naked eye. It was the sole reason she felt no shame in flying from her home, while the stench of charred hair and flesh wrapped themselves around her body like a wet shawl, cloying and oppressing in its discomfort, and equally impossible to shrug free of.

_The answer? No, to avoid death; the answer yes would make it……_

Her fear at last was birthed into the still night air as she cried out in a mixture of horror and barely suppressed rage as her slender ankles caught themselves on the thick, gnarled root of an ancient oak, which curled about their grime covered forms like a well fed and overly lethargic house cat. It was only a heartbeat in length of a falter. But it was enough to condemn. So it was that the slender frame of the young woman raged against the enfolding arms of the darkness that seemed both like the outreached arms of a long forgotten loved one she had longed to glimpse again for so long…and death's grim, triumphant smile.

Her hands tensed into animalistic talons, tearing at the soft loam as she surged to her feet once more, damp earth falling away from her hands like scattered, broken dreams, as she ran on. But though her spirit and mind were willing enough, her flesh was not, and it soon became painfully clear that she was going far slower than before, slowing further with each frantic pulse of her heart. The war of the torn and bleeding heart and the clouding mind against the swiftly closing in night was coming to a swift, grim curtain fall.

All was silent. For a moment. With the sound of breaking air, a silver star embedded itself into the flesh of her back, gleaming with a cold, ethereal light in the last rays of the sun. It was almost as if it had chosen to make its death between her shoulder blades. Again she cried out, and stumbled, hands encircling around a nearby tree, as her mouth gaped in silent, gasping agony. Even as she sought to expel pain and shock alike in a single breath, a thin stream of crimson lifeforce dribbled from her cracked lips. She began to quake, violent tremors dancing up and down her spine as her vision narrowed and turned to smoke, her knees threatening to give out from under her.

With all the wonder of a child reflected in her eyes, a wonder once cherished in children, when innocence was still young and untainted by the tears and troubles of the world, her eyes fell then to her chest, mesmerized by the muted shine of a double-edged sword's tip embedded within. Her assailant had seen the rage emerge on few enough occasions, spewing forth in a tangle of violent, uncontrolled blows and bared teeth and yells caught through with tears of anger, but he knew that it was always there. He saw it shining in her eyes, heard it as a barely perceptible tremble lacing her voice, and detected it in the stiffly controlled grace of her poise.

An ironic smirk curved onto his features. It was always the same. They ran. They ran for aimless miles. They ran until, too exhausted to go on, the fear consumed them from within. Then came resolve, and yet more running. Then fear again. Then the rage. It was the rage he craved the most. The final spark of defiance, the hypnotizing, fascinating desire of another's will to cling to their pointless, short lives. To see it dancing now in her eyes was…. astonishingly gratifying.

She spat now, snarling like the coyotes that haunted these hills like wraiths, face contorted in a mask of feral hatred, salvia and blood alike stippling the space between them. Without conscious thought, her hand flew to the wound, steeping her fingers in the swift flow of blood. With a ponderous motion, she began to draw the blade from herself in small measurements, measurements that seemed to last an eternity in and of themselves, accompanied only by the moist ripping of muscle and sinew, and her gulping sobs.

"_Do you believe in God? Written on the bullet. Say "yes" and pull the trigger._

She was so very tired.Her breath rasped in a shallow manner as she attempted to lift herself from her prone position. Each whisper of movement, however, was as agonizingly slow as attempting to press through air turned to liquid. To further compound her growing frustration, quickly coloring into bruised shades of despair, her limbs merely twitched in a feeble manner, as reluctant to work her will as an inquisitive hound coursing through the fields after imagined quarry being called back to its master's side.

With a slow, melancholy blink, she realized with some poignant surprise, that she was, indeed, dying, as so many others she cherished had done this night. Salty water coursed down her cheeks. She reached up to brush off the salty brine, astounded to find that they were tears; her tears. And yet…and yet…if this was going to be her end, she would not have her end in front of him. She wouldn't grant him the pleasure of watching the light fade from her eyes. With what failing strength she could gather, she rose, and, with a low, guttural snarl, hurled the blade back towards its owner. She had little strength…and it failed to strike its target, falling instead to the earth with a muted thud. Staggering ever so slightly turned, willed her trembling legs forward once more.

"_Do you believe in God? " Written on the bullet. And Cassie pulled the trigger._

Fate is, at times, a cruel and fickle thing. And though he questioned the politely blank and reserved face of the moon about many things, it merely started down impassively at him and did not answer. Of course, he didn't expect it to. He was many things, but mad was not one of them. Yet of all of it, it was the silence that hurt most, he reflected. The silence. At once a balm, a veil, the comforting arms of a mother, and the bitter bite of steel.

With a sudden violence, the silence that he both revered and abhorred was shattered by irregular footfalls and ragged breathing. He tensed, hand instinctively coming to an uncertain rest at his side, feeling once more the chill comfort of the outline of his weapon. All too soon for his taste, it was upon him. Like waves breaking against the rocks in a despairing fury, she broke against him, and her strength fled her for a final time.

She was crying again. Severe, racking sobs that shook her frame like a lone autumn leaf long dead on a branch, clinging to a final, familiar comfort before the silver sheet of rain claimed it and it surrendered to the will of nature a final time. Her hands were engulfed in a tide of crimson, compressing and releasing the fabric within her fists, even as her eyes sought those of her somewhat ignorant comforter.

Even as Vincent braced against this foreign form of assault, his eyes meeting hers in a dispassionate manner, he warred against the impulse to cast her away from him as hastily as if she were on fire. To embrace was foreign, unwelcome. And yet, it was strangely…not nearly as unpleasant as he imagined it had been at first. But upon meeting her gaze, his urge to push her away with a shudder of detached revulsion was again renewed.

_All heads are bowed in silence, to remember her last sentence. _

Yet, he did not, for reasons he himself couldn't say. It was disturbing, the raw need that welled in her eyes. Pale, blue and purple eyes, with pupils that spiraled in a lazy well of darkness. She was…Al Bhed, then. Curious. Most curious indeed. Yet it was not the pain, or the confusion, or the dull resignation that shone within her eyes that sent him reeling as if he'd been dealt a physical blow. No, he had seen that many times before-indeed, had been the cause of that many times before…he had…and did, sin. And sinned. And would sin again. No, what made him pause, made him return the embrace in a ginger manner, one arm folding around her back to draw her closer, while another press ever so slightly on the base of her neck, so that her face came to an uncertain, weary rest against his chest, was that nearly childish plea for comfort. For a reason.

His own head lowered in silence. The two remained locked in that manner for several heartbeats.

_She answered him, knowing what would happen….._

The tears flowed freely now. A skeletal hand resting gingerly on the top of her head in slim comfort as the wind stirred her dress and his raven locks alike. "Dryhg oui. Ouin gehthacc ec...uha tyo, oui femm aclyba dra ramm oui ryja lnaydat vun ouincamv." With a final, shuddering sigh, her form shook a final time, and then was still. Vincent knew then that she was gone. He marked her passing with hardly the bat of an eye, although cradling a corpse was yet another unwelcome sensation. Without comprehending why, he found himself gazing down into the wide and staring eyes of the young woman.

A cold wave of impersonal fury clouded his mind for an instant. She was far younger than he had guessed…not yet out of her adolescence.

_Her last words still hanging in the air._

"My dear, you know nothing of hell," he muttered to himself. "Nor of the one I have created for myself." With that, he began to lower her to the earth, thumb and forefinger gently catching and pinching the skin of her eyelids, drawing them down over her two-toned eyes. It was only as he straightened that he noticed the brief, faint glint of something silver within the folds of her clothing. His hand reached forward then, grasping the small amulet and drawing into the light of the moon. The amulet swung to and fro madly in his fist, showering his vision with stipple visions of moonlight. It was hammered silver, with several rare gems inset in the metal, pointing in all four directions.

"Tell me," he spoke to the corpse. "Was this trinket worth your life? Are you nothing but a thief?"

_In the air….._

The brittle report of a twig snapping underfoot caused him to rip violently from his broodings. Even as his eyes scanned the murk, the moon sought comfort from the dark cover of clouds. In the instant where his eyes were momentarily cheated, the girl's pursuer stepped from the shadows. "She's dead then." His tones were flat, as brittle and emotionless as the twig he had shattered beneath the heel of his boot.

"She was an amusing little toy. A shame she broke quite so easily." The smile of a man speaks much about his character. Though his words dripped with pity, there was none to be found in his eyes…or the cold steel of his mouth. "A pity," he sighed again. "My first decent quarry all month, and she turns out to be just as cowardly as a Chocobo chick as the rest of her family."

He heaved a theatrical sigh. "No matter. What does matter though, is that amulet.""

_How many will die?_

Vincent stepped forward just as the man reached out a hand to touch the cooling corpse. "You will not touch her." The man raised an eyebrow, a lazy grin spreading over his features. "Really? She's only a girl. What is she to you?" Vincent grew silent for a moment. "Nothing. She's nothing to me." "I figured as much." Once more, the man made to search the body. "Maybe you didn't hear me," Vincent spoke again, his voice as gentle as ever, deceptive in its serenity. His voice was tranquil enough, but his eyes whispered of dark fire. "I said, you _will not_ touch her."

"Ah. Is this how it will be, my friend?" Vincent merely inclined his head, eyes nothing more than sullen flames. "Very well." With those words, the man struck.

I feel that's a rather decent stopping point for the first chapter. Let me now say that Vincent Valentine is © Square Enix, and the lyrics to "Callie" are © To Flyleaf.

All other text belongs to me, Scorpio Jedi, unless otherwise stated.


End file.
